How to foster resilience in children?

Tips to help children emotionally overcome life's adversities.

Resilience is the capacity that people develop to face difficult, frightening, painful or disappointing situations or events without collapsing or breaking down.

On the other hand, resilience is built on the basis of internal and external experiences, which in turn are seen as a result ofwhich in turn are mediated by the environment. With this in mind, it is not surprising that this set of capacities can be trained and developed. In fact, they are so from childhood.

Tips to favor the development of resilience in children.

Here are five guidelines to facilitate the development of emotional intelligence and therefore resilience in children.

1. Facilitate experiences

Social interaction is the vehicle through which we understand the world and ourselves. It also fosters autonomy and choice, characteristics of a resilient person.

Attachment experience

With a secure attachment bond the child has the freedom to explore the world because he/she knows that there is a reliable, stable and close figure.This will be expressed in the way he/she reacts to difficult experiences.

Therefore, verbal and non-verbal contact with attachment figures is fundamental: caresses, eye contact, tone and the words we choose. Resilience is the way we manage affection, so secure attachment has a direct impact on our emotional regulation throughout life.

Experience in the game

It is fundamental, since it symbolically allows the child to live diverse experiences with a different emotional charge.These have an impact on affective development, facilitating spaces for, among other things, tolerating frustration, solving problems or generating ideas.

Social experience

Having the possibility of exploring different spaces outside the home, such as parks, stores, going to the supermarket and, of course, the school context, implies the interaction with different types of people in different situations. cognitive flexibility is developedThis is a fundamental factor to face crises and regulate emotions, since it allows adaptation to changes.

2. Be an example

Children learn from the way in which we adults react to adversity.. They are born observers, and this is a great source of significant learning.

Many times we think that because they are small they do not realize our emotional reactions, but it is precisely these reactions that they pick up more easily. If we react disproportionately to a problem, say catastrophic words or have defeatist attitudes, the child learns that such intensity and type of emotion is attributed to those situations.

If, on the contrary, we give place to emotions that occur in a regulated and solution-focused way, the child will also internalize it. For example, instead of saying: "Now what are we going to do, there is no way out! we can say: "although right now we don't know what to do, we will surely think of something".

3. Validate emotions

We often believe, because we have been taught, that negative emotions should not be expressed.. If a child gets angry we say "don't get angry"; if he/she is crying, "don't cry"; if something has happened that affects him/her "nothing happens"; if he/she is afraid: "don't be afraid"... and we teach them that feeling that kind of emotions is bad and that the way to solve it is by keeping quiet, so they do not learn to manage those emotions or to give them place in a natural way in their experiences.

We validate emotions by helping emotional expression: "I guess you are angry or sad", "you are afraid".... We must also give them a space where they can freely express the emotion, and ask: "What happened", "What do you think", "Do you feel any discomfort in your body? In this way wee also help them to discriminate between emotionsWe can also help them learn to differentiate between anger, sadness, frustration, etc.

4. Guide the emotional experience

Once the emotions have been validated, we can suggest alternatives for managing them..

We can give examples of when we have felt fear: "Would a hug help you to relax a little?". Once the physiological activation has relaxed a little (for example through a hug or a caress or drinking a glass of water), we can propose a solution: "When do you feel safe and brave?" Depending on his or her answer, we can integrate it into the situation, and if he or she does not know, we can give examples where we have seen him or her feeling safe; this will help him or her to find internal resources that facilitate coping.

Finally, once the child has identified what he/she feels and his/her resources, we can propose actions that will help him/her to cope, we can propose actions that will help regulate the intensity of the emotion.. For example, we can do breathing exercises, do some reading, and concrete actions that increase security. If we use the example of COVID-19, it could be hand washing instead of don't touch! Guiding the experience does not imply being directive but proposing, asking questions and making decisions together.

5. Practicing empathy

We can also learn from the experiences of others, this includes developing listening and generosity. In an age-appropriate way, we can also tell them what is happening to us when we are going through a difficult time, and allow them to contribute something, whether it is practical help or an idea to improve the situation.

In the same way, sharing experiences of other children who have gone through difficult times and have managed to overcome them or to provide experiences (e.g., sharing food, toys or time with people who are having difficulties). Metaphors are also an excellent vehicle to put yourself in the other person's shoes, through stories, resilient characters with whom you can identify.

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